George Mason University and Prince William County have formed a public-private partnership in Simulation and Game Design. The recently founded Virginia Serious Game Institute (VSGI) provides a new gateway to simulation, modeling and game design, applied-research and company formation, accelerating early-entry entrepreneurship
into the Serious Game Industry. Its mission is
to support high-value knowledge job creation and regional economic development
through start-up business incubation and spin-out of high growth companies
leading to commercialization.

The Institute offers
new business incubators cutting-edge computer design research and development,
access to visualization and simulation software, training, product development,
business support and rapid-prototyping.

Each year the VSGI
invites applicants to reside in the business incubator located on the George Mason University - Prince William Campus (recently renamed to Science and Technology Campus), Prince William, Virginia. An Advisory
Board of distinguished investors and industry experts judge and select the
qualifying candidates. This year capacity has increased to allow seven (7) new
start-ups to enter the VSGI, effective July 1, 2015.

Deadline: Online
Applications should be sent no later than midnight May 1, 2015. Finalists will
be contacted in late May and published in June.

VSGI Retrospective

Almost a year after
opening, the Virginia Serious Game Institute (VSGI) based at George Mason
University’s Science and Technology Campus (formerly known as the Prince William Campus) and led by Mason faculty, has incubated five
start-up businesses that have collectively created over 35 jobs and generated
over $500,000 in corporate support.The VSGI has the potential to house up to 10
startups.

VSGI is the applied
research arm of the Computer Game Design Program at George Mason University and
is affiliated with the International Serious Game Institute. It is the only
facility of its type on the East Coast and one of only four international
affiliates of the Serious Games Institute, based in UK. The other affiliates
are in Mexico, South Africa and Singapore.

The incubator opened
in March 2014 at the Mason Enterprise Center. This location, just 26 miles
south of Washington D.C., provides access to one of the top high-tech workforce
in the nation. More than 60 GMU students have interned at VSGI, its resident companies
or assisted in teaching.

One of the incubated
businesses, Professions Quest, was started in 2014 by the American Association
of Colleges of Pharmacy. Professions Quest’s flagship Mimycx, an innovative,
massively multi-player online (MMO) Serious Game, has entered the beta test
phase with pre-approved healthcare institutions.

Mimycx was created
to bridge a gap in healthcare higher education inter-professional
communications and cooperation. Mimycx will allow healthcare professional
schools across the country to offer students a novel and entertaining way to
interact online with each other, while fostering the development of
communication skills and core competencies, which are critical in the
patient/population-centered care field.

The MMO game design
combines medical-based learning with the fun of an arcade game of futuristic
world quests and multi-player adventures.

“The Virginia Serious Game Institute has been instrumental in our ‘excellerated’ performance
as a new small business,” said Professions Quest project manager John Damici,
who earned his bachelor’s degree in computer game design from Mason in 2014.

“Not only will this platform provide each user with a fun and engaging
vehicle to master inter-professional collaborative practice, but it also has
the potential to build new professional relationships and knowledge exchange to
improve the health care industry in the future,” said Scott Martin, institute
founding director and associate dean of research and technology in Mason´s
Computer Game Design Program.